This plan provides teachers with the resources to guide students through the analysis of musical time periods which will provide insight into history with a lens through the fine arts.  This analysis helps students make connections with contemporaries and world events, in turn, enabling students to perform music with greater depth and style.

In this plan, students will research, discuss, and present ways in which music was used to effect change during various historical periods or events. This particular plan will use the American Civil Rights Movement, South African Apartheid, America’s participation in Vietnam, and current events as examples.

Students will analyze Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware by hypothesizing the story the artwork depicts and then create a drawing illustrating an important event in their life.

The Declaration of Independence and the words “all men are created equal” provided thousands of enslaved Africans high expectations and many were ready to fight for the Country and their own personal freedom. Thousands of enslaved Africans impacted the war right from the start at Lexington and Concord, all the way to the end at Yorktown. This lesson will explore the life of James Armistead Lafayette, an enslaved African Virginian. Working as an undercover spy for George Washington, James risked his life to gather key intelligence about the British that helped secure an American victory at Yorktown. In this lesson, we will discuss whether his efforts in service of the American cause helped or hindered his ability to achieve emancipation.

See computer science integration opportunities in K-5 history in this crosswalk of the two disciplines.

Law & Order, Philadelphia Style; The city that just elected a civil rights lawyer as D.A. is the same city presided over for years by "Mayor Cop" Frank Rizzo.

Legends and Lore; A roadside marker program in New York State embraces the gray area between official history and local lore.

Research activities investigate social-science connections such as trade, societal impact, and style on the production and consumption of porcelain in the period leading up to the French Revolution. Extensions relate to chemistry connections.

Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter) is an Angevin charter originally issued in Latin in June 1215. The
Magna Carta was the first document forced onto a King of England by a group of his subjects in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their rights.
The charter is widely known throughout the English speaking world as an important part of the protracted historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law in England and beyond. Read a translation into English here.

Like so many other government agencies during the New Deal, HOLC and its parent bureau, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, shaped Americans' lives and livelihoods profoundly during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s. Both proved critical to protecting and expanding home ownership, to standardizing lending practices, and to encouraging residential and commercial real estate investment in a flagging economy. Across the middle third of the twentieth century, arguably the most prosperous decades in American history, these agencies worked with public and private sector partners to create millions of jobs and help millions of Americans buy or keep their homes. At the very same time, federal housing programs helped codify and expand practices of racial and class segregation. They ensured, moreover, that rampant real estate speculation and environmental degradation would accompany America's remarkable economic recovery and growth.

This is is a travel itinerary highlighting 89 historic places that tell the story of Massachusetts' relationship with the sea. Read essays about lighthouses and lifesaving stations, ships and shipbuilding, the U.S. Navy, and maritime commerce.

In this unit students study the California migrant farm workers' fight for justice. Lead by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, this time period is often referred to as the start of the Latino civil rights movement. Over the course of the unit students will explore what life was like for migrant farm workers in the 1960s and the barriers that prevented them from obtaining better wages and equitable working conditions. Students will then learn about how the farm workers were able to band together under the leadership of Larry Itliong, Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta to launch a multi-year movement focused on using nonviolent tactics as a way of making meaningful, long-lasting change. In particular, students will analyze how different types of nonviolent protests (boycotts, pickets, marches, strikes, and fasting) helped educate the public and influence change. Understanding the history of migrant farm workers and their struggle for justice is important for helping students understand the world around them. It is important to note that this unit is based in history. Many of the ideas and concepts in this unit are connected to current events; however, the focus of the unit is on this period in history.

In reading, this unit helps students continue to build their informational reading skills. Over the course of the unit students will be pushed to think about the connection between two or more historical events and people. Unlike previous units, this unit contains a variety of primary sources and videos that require students to use different reading and speaking and listening strategies in order to synthesize and summarize key ideas.

Mum’s the Word; In the height of the Cold War, the NSA created a series of posters to keep its secrets from leaking. They're both wonderful and creepy.

This Learning Resource is based on the American Panorama Map "Electing the House"

This Learning Resource is based on the Bunk excerpt of The Nib's"Harriet Tubman"

This Learning Resource is based on the Bunk excerpt of The Nib's "The Black Radical You've Never Heard Of"

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America's historic and archeological resources.